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Sunday, November 9, 2014

Why Have Jewish-Arab Relations Deteriorated in Israel? The View of Sikkuy's Ron Gerlitz, by Phyllis Bernstein

What follows is a summary of remarks
delivered by Ron Gerlitz, co-executive director of Sikkuy: The Association for
the Advancement of Civic Equality, at an Inter-Agency Task Force for Israeli
Arab Issues meeting on November 6, 2014 in New York.

This summer, and since the war in
Gaza, we have witnessed a serious deterioration in relations between Jewish and
Arab citizens in Israel.Unlike the
events which took place in 2000 between the police and Arab citizens, since the
summer of 2014 we’ve seen civil clashes between Jewish and Arab citizens.

In most cases, Jews have attacked
Arabs verbally or physically.What’s new
is the frequency and intensity of these incidents. This is something we’ve
never seen before in Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.A few examples:shouting “death to Arabs” on the street,
demonstrations demanding the firing of all Arab employees in some shopping
malls, organized pressure on employers to fire Arab employees, death threats
against people who expressed sympathy for Arabs, including former Defense
Minister Amir Peretz, physical and verbal attacks against Arab citizens, racist
incitement in social media, dismissal of Arab employees by mainstream Jewish
employers, and incitement by politicians such as Foreign Minister Avigdor
Lieberman who called on Jews to boycott Arab businesses.

The results:Arabs have simply become afraid to go out in
the street, speak Arabic in public, and go to work. The level of hate has
increased significantly on both sides.Extreme right-wing organizations have also incited hatred against
Israeli Arabs through well-organized demonstrations and marches.

Some believe this has happened
because of the war in Gaza.But there
have been three other wars in Gaza in recent years and these things did not
happen before.If we simply see these
developments as an “unexplained outburst of racism" in Jewish society, we
will be unable to find solutions.What
we are seeing is a backlash by the very extreme right to the strengthening of
Arab society and its ever-increasing integration in the economy and society in
Israel.

Arab society in Israel has gotten
stronger – economically, socially and also in terms of political
representation.Many factors have driven
this process, some due to Arab society itself, some to government efforts, and
some to NGO’s working for equality.

While growing up near Tira in the
seventies, Ron saw Arabs working only as school janitors or as farmers. Today
you can see Arabs working in pharmacies and in hospitals as doctors and
nurses.The symbol of success is the
Arab Supreme Court judge who sent former President Katzav to jail.Arab citizens of Israel have not only become
better off, but they are also more visible and this has changed how the extreme
Jewish right sees them.

The backlash began in the Knesset
with a wave of legislation against Arab citizens.But the politicians failed, and Arab society
has continued to flourish.This summer,
people took to the streets to try to do what the politicians couldn’t do.

The extreme right wing wanted to
stop integration in employment, and the “Chuligans” in the street (similar to
the KKK, but with different hats) descended on pharmacies to demand the
dismissal of Arab employees. They cannot tolerate the strength and visibility
of Arabs in public in Israel. They want to put them in the only place they’re
willing to see them – back down at the bottom.

During the summer, the assault
against Arab citizens took place in the Knesset, within the government, on
social networks, in the media and, of course, on the street.This makes the situation much worse because
it is harder to control.And we have
come very close to the point where things could spin out of control.

What does all this mean for Israeli
society?In a word, it’s
dangerous.There is a real possibility
that the largely non-violent relations between Arabs and Jews in Israel will
deteriorate into serious violence.

We must develop solutions for this
new situation, because things have changed dramatically.A few important lessons emerge.First, we didn't expect the backlash from
the right wing to the success of efforts to strengthen Arab society and
especially to the strides made in integrating Arabs into the Israeli work
place.The process of economic development,
integration and narrowing of gaps between Arabs and Jews is not linear.There are people on the other side who want
to stop it and we need to take this into account.An example:While Israeli and American Jewish philanthropists are giving microfinance
to small Arab businesses, the foreign minister called on Jews not to buy from
those very same businesses!Philanthropic efforts must take this into account.Otherwise, their efforts are at risk of
failing.

There are more and more shared spaces
in which Jews and Arabs mix on an equal basis, especially in work places and in
the new mixed cities like Nazareth Illit.And it is exactly in those places that we saw clashes between Jewish and
Arab citizens.

If the Arab woman from Sakhnin
hadn’t graduated university and worked as a pharmacist in Haifa, no one would
have cared what she thought about the IDF during the Gaza war.But she is a graduate of an Israeli college
and she works in a pharmacy.So
right-wing hooligans demanded her dismissal because of what she wrote on
Facebook during the war."Death to
the Arabs" marches were not held in Baqa al-Gharbiya but in Nazareth Illit
and Haifa.The Arab doctor was fired and
not the Arab hospital cleaner.

While we have worked hard and had
success in narrowing gaps, for example through increased economic development
in the Arab sector and creating more shared places, no one considered that
those places could become focal points for tension between Jews and Arabs in
times of war.It is exactly in those
places where the right wing will react.

Perhaps the most important lesson is
that economic development by itself simply isn’t enough.The difference in narratives between Jews and
Arabs dramatically affects the ability of these societies to live together.NGOs and philanthropists cannot create a
common narrative for both sides.The
Zionist and Palestinian narratives are very far apart.That chasm will not be bridged in the next
two generations.But we must find ways
to live together despite these different narratives.

We must be ready for the next
escalation.Every newly shared space
could become the arena for the next escalation between Jews and Arabs.It is important to develop and promote ideas
that will enable those shared places:for example, the workplace must become tolerant of the different
narratives.As an example, an Arab
doctor should not be fired for Facebook posts in sympathy with the Palestinian
children killed in Gaza.

We should not stop pushing
economic development forward, and we should continue to build a shared
society.But now we must also prepare
for the reactions of those who find these unwelcome.In addition to our investment in economic
progress, we will also have to invest in preparing our response to the likely
counterattack.We will have to find
ways that those shared spaces, especially places of employment, can accommodate
the two differing and sometimes conflicting narratives of Jews and Arabs in
Israel.

Phyllis Bernstein adds:Israeli Arabs, and the Palestinians in the
West Bank and in Gaza, all view themselves as part of the same “Palestinian
people.”Arab citizens want to remain
in Israel as citizens, but in times of war they are unable to express dissenting
views against the government’s policies or the IDF’s actions.Israeli civil society really needs to start
addressing the question of how to deal with the “Palestinian peoplehood
narrative” of Israel’s Arab citizens.In short, Israel needs to work much more on its democracy issues.

Phyllis Bernstein is co-chair of the
Israeli Arab Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater Metrowest New Jersey
and serves on the executive board of Partners for Progressive Israel.Her views are her own and not those of any
organization with which she is affiliated.

Here are links to three Op-eds by
Ron Gerlitz with further analysis of the deterioration in Arab-Jewish relations
in Israel this summer:

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